


Ghost of Me

by Whedonista93



Series: Spooky Season 2020 [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Ghosts, Supernatural Elements, Temporary Character Death, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26886886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whedonista93/pseuds/Whedonista93
Summary: My roommate is a chain-smoking ghost from the forties who refuses to get with the times and biggest concern seems to be that I'm not making my pasta right.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Series: Spooky Season 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1958881
Comments: 24
Kudos: 234





	Ghost of Me

"Your body is _where_ exactly?"

The ghost in Darcy's living room shrugs. "Somewhere in Russia."

"Russia?!"

He grins, all dimples and sass. "I was a soldier in the forties. Got thrown off a train."

Darcy winces at his glib tone, but pushes on. "If your body is in Russia why the hell are _you_ in my living room?!"

Another shrug.

Darcy growls.

"This used to be my apartment," he admits quietly. "Mine and my best friends."

Darcy softens. "What'd you say your name was again?"

"James."

James is dressed in neatly pressed trousers with his suspenders hanging loose, and a button up with the top few buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He smokes a pack a day ("It's not like it's gonna kill me," he jokes when Darcy shoots him a Look. "And they're not real, so they can't hurt you or smell up the apartment," he continues. Darcy let's it rest). He refuses to watch the news, but loves everything animated and Food Network. He loves poetry and fantasy, and practically begs Darcy to read them aloud when she's just lounging around the apartment. He bullies her into planning a rooftop garden so he can teach her how to make pasta and sauce from scratch 'the right way'. ("I would kiss you if you were corporeal," she declares after the first bite. James just grins smugly.) He calls her 'doll', and she doesn't mind. James is all old school suave and charm and Darcy might be a little in love with her ghostly roommate.

But James is not a ghost. She doesn't know what the hell he _is_ , but he's not a ghost. Ghost's have bad times. They get confused or go crazy. They vanish for days on end as their ties to the mortal place loosen over time. James has been stuck in this apartment for 70 years and is still steady, constant, and always all the way there. It's starting to drive _Darcy_ crazy.

Thor is on world, and Janey has a conference she can't get away from for a few days, so he needles Darcy into attending a Stark event at the Smithsonian with him. It means Asgard is springing for a new dress, so she says yes. Plus, she gets to meet the honest-to-gods Avengers, so she figures win-win. Thor introduces her as 'the first mortal to ever fell me' and that seems to endear her to the motley crew of supers.

She's not sure why, but she follows when she sees Steve slip out of the main hall. She's not surprised he ends up in his own exhibit, silently scanning every picture _except_ the ones of himself.

"I know you're there," he says without turning around.

Darcy blushes, but moves to stand next to him.

"The world is so different now," he near-whispers. "It was simpler, back then.”

Darcy lays a comforting hand on his arm. "I know."

Steve side-eyes her dubiously.

She laughs. "My roommate is a chain-smoking ghost from the forties who refuses to get with the times and biggest concern seems to be that I'm not making my pasta right."

Steve barks out a startled laugh.

Darcy grins. "There we go, I knew you could smile."

Steve doesn't stop smiling, but the expression dims to something more brittle. "I miss them." 

"Tell me about them."

Darcy deserves a fucking _trophy_ for her acting skills, and she tells James so as soon as she slams her way into the apartment later that night.

He simply lifts an eyebrow.

Darcy scowls and throws a pillow through his head. "You never told me you were James _Barnes_!"

"Uh… does it matter?"

Darcy bites down, _hard_ , trying to get herself under control. "Does it… if you would watch the fucking news once in a decade you would know the answer to that is yes!"

James's expression turns mulish.

"If you vanish right now, I swear to Thor I will play nothing but salsa music, twenty-four seven, for the next _month_. We are finishing this conversation."

James crosses his arm, but remains in his seat.

Darcy kicks her heels off, toward James instead of the doorway, purely out of spite, before she continues. "History lesson numero uno, Steve is alive."

James' jaw drops, then he snaps it closed and his expression hardens.

Darcy rolls her eyes and plops down next to him on the couch, opening the selfie she'd taken with Steve tonight.

James' jaw drops again. "Stevie…"

"They found him a few years ago," Darcy explains gently. "Alive and well, just frozen."

James frowns. "Frozen?"

"He crashed a plane into the Arctic not long after you fell from the train. It was a bomb, heading toward a lot of innocent people."

Bucky closes his eyes and chokes on something like a sob. "Dumb punk."

Darcy smiles. "Between the subzero temps and the serum…"

"He survived."

"He survived," Darcy confirms. "He's alive, young, healthy, and still being stupidly heroic."

James let's his head fall back against the couch. "Of course he is."

Darcy someone counts to sixty, letting him collect himself. "Ready for lesson two?"

James waves at her vaguely, in a gesture she takes to mean, 'Go on.'

"You're not a ghost."

James looks up at her sharply.

Darcy shrugs. "Your body was never recovered. And you're way too sane for someone who's supposedly been a ghost for seventy-plus years. I think you're alive. And _you_ ," she wiggles her fingers at his incorporeal form, "are your spirit."

"Huh."

Darcy trudges through the snow, mentally cursing James, then deciding it wasn't his fault and switching to cursing Hilter, in every language she knows. The fact that he fell from a train in the fucking Arctic Circle is one of only two reasons they've theorized he's most likely still alive, but even in fur, Darcy is freezing her ass off. All things considered, the search radius is relatively small, thanks to modern technology, but Darcy is still having to dig through several square miles of ice and snow. It takes her two and half weeks to find his body, and another week to drag him back to hospitable temperatures. She doesn't think he's going to be happy about the missing arm. She manages to get him back to the abandoned cabin she'd found before setting off on her search. It's close enough to civilization she can run for help or supplies if needed, but isolated enough no one will stumble across them.

She drops his body on the porch, then Shifts to open the door and drag him inside. Without her fur, the cold turns bitingly miserable, and she gets a fire roaring faster than she ever has I'm her life. She bundles up in layers, then lays his body out on a pallet in front of the fire. It takes five hours for his body to thaw enough for her to find a vein, but as soon as he reaches that point, she hooks him to I.V. bags of liquids and nutrients. Twelve hours later, it's clear that's not going to be enough.

_"Okay, one more time," James begs Darcy._

_Darcy smiles obligingly. "Once I get up there, there's less than ten square miles to search. If I'm right, you're alive for the same reasons Steve was. One, the temperature. And two, whatever bastardized serum Hydra stuck you with when you were imprisoned. I'm gonna wake you up the same way SHIELD woke Steve up - gradual thawing and lots of intravenous nutrients and liquids."_

_James releases a shuddery breath, then lights a cigarette. "We haven't talked about what to do if I start actually dying."_

_Darcy's throat seizes up. "What do you want to do?"_

_James closes his eyes. "Put me out of my misery."_

_Darcy finches, then bites her lip until it bleeds. "What if there was another option?"_

Darcy knows what death smells like, and less than a day after she finds him, James smells like it. He's still alive, but only barely. Darcy reminds herself this is his choice, then Shifts. She takes a final fortifying breath, and clamps her teeth over his neck.

Darcy knocks on Steve's door a sunny, happy morning, four months after she met him.

He looks pleasantly surprised when he opens the door. "Darcy! I, uh, I tried to call you, after the fundraiser, to tell you thank you, for taking with me that night, but no one knew where you were."

Darcy bites her lip self-consciously. "I took a… a bit of a field trip. Didn't have cell service."

Steve blushes and rubs the back of his neck. "Oh… uh, good trip?"

Darcy beams. "Kinda the best, actually… you remember I told you about my roommate?"

"Chain-smoking forties playboy ghost?" Steve grins.

"Right," Darcy chuckles. "Only, not so much a ghost."

Steve's face scrunches adorably.

"He was a spirit who got disassociated from his living body. So I went looking for his body. To be honest, I don't know if I ever would have figured it out without you."

"Me?"

Darcy nods. "Yeah, so, ya know, I figured it was only fair to introduce you."

Steve shrugs. "Uh, sure."

Darcy doesn't turn when she feels James coming up the steps behind her. She keeps her eyes on Steve's face.

Steve, well... Steve looks like he's seeing a ghost.

"Steve, you've met James before, haven't you?" Darcy asks sweetly.

Steve seems to be out of his reverie, and launches himself or the door. James laughs and catches him, then Darcy's hand flashes out to balance James.

James laughs and wraps his arm around Steve's neck. "Easy, punk. My balance is still off."

Steve jerks back. "What?"

James shrugs his left shoulder. "Didn't escape completely unscathed."

Steve winces. 

James shrugs again. "I'm alive."

Steve blinks rapidly, ridding himself of the threatening tears.

The breeze catches James' collar and Steve frowns at the newly exposed skin.

"Buck, your neck!"

James flushes bright red.

Darcy smirks smugly.

James grimaces at Steve. "Right, uh, Darcy turned me into a werewolf to save me?"


End file.
